It was a dark and stormy night in Erisville. Jagged bolts of lightning wracked the sky above Detective Callahan's house. "Glad I'm not out there tonight," Callahan thought. He gazed out his bay window at the thick, frozen fog that had engulfed the landscape. As his yard vanished and was replaced by an eerie, foggy void, Callahan guessed it was maybe five degrees outside right now. Too cold for anything but tea and a book.

He took the last gulp of his cup of strong jasmine tea, and headed to the kitchen to make another. His mind was elsewhere as he poured the tea, but a sharp scream jolted him out of his daydream. He jumped, spilling boiling water on his hand, but he hardly noticed.

His thoughts were centered on the scream. He waited for another, but no sound came. "Just a loon," he laughed, and went back to his chair, fire and book. His phone rang ten minutes later, making him jump again. It was Murphy, the desk sergeant at the precinct. "Callahan, we have an apparent homicide at one-two-seven Apple Blossom Rd. Will you check it out since you're so close?"
"Sure," the detective replied, stunned by the awful realization the scream he'd heard was not a loon after all.
"Thanks," said Murphy. "Officers Gould and Apfel are on the scene now."

Callahan only had to drive around the block to get to the stately home of Celine Omar, heiress to the Omar Tasty Snacks fortune. He drove up the long driveway, passing a small guest house which was about sixty feet from the bigger one. He parked in front of the main house's big bay window and walked inside. He entered the house and was greeted by Gould, who led him into the study with the big bay window he'd parked under. Only the desk lamp was on, giving the room a shadowy appearance. Inside was Apfel, holding an evidence bag containing the murder weapon, a large butcher knife.

The body of Ms. Omar was in the middle of the room, covered with a sheet. On the couch sat a woman in a white nightgown, and a man in pajama's, both disheveled and spotted with blood.
"What happened here?" He asked the woman.
In a voice choked from tears she said, "I'm Tessa, the maid. I live in the guest house on the drive and my front window faces this bay window. I heard a scream as I was getting ready for bed. I looked out my front window and saw him struggling with Ms. Omar. I raced in here to stop him, but she was already laying on the floor." She began to cry again. "I tried to pull the knife out and save her but he attacked me too. The whole staff knew he hated her. They were dating up until a month ago, when she broke it off. He seemed fine, but we all knew he would try to get revenge."
"What?!" yelled the man sitting next to her. "She is a liar!"
"Calm down sir," said Callahan. "Why don't you tell me what happened."
"I am John, the butler. I live in the guest house out back. I heard the scream and ran in the back door. When I got to the study I saw Tessa standing over Ms. Omar's body. I rushed over to Celine, and tried to pull out the knife, to save her, but Tessa attacked me. I loved Celine. I would never hurt her. But Celine had found out that Tessa has been stealing from her. Tessa watches out her front window and spies on Celine in the study. When Celine is occupied, Tessa goes into the house and steals from her. She was about to be fired," said John sadly.
"Lies!" screamed Tessa, jumping to her feet.
Apfel took her by the arm. "You're going to need to calm down ma'am." Tessa sat back down, whimpering.

"What do you think sir? Both their fingerprints will be on the knife and I've never heard two such conflicting stories," said Gould.
Callahan thought a moment. "Take Tessa into custody. She's obviously lying."
How did Callahan come to this conclusion?

Hint

Answer

John was telling the truth,
Tessa had to have been lying.
Callahan had looked out his own window at home and had not been able to see anything through the foggy void. Being only a block away, the conditions would have been the same at Ms. Omar's home. Tessa would not have been able to see into a poorly lit room through 60 feet of frozen fog, making her story impossible.Hide

no lie in the title,
this is very
L O N G
nice writing skills, could be an author, if U made this up on your own.
If you copied this from another source, try to copy shorter stories to submit as teasers.
nice tho

Now everyone, let's all play nice around here. It was a long story indeed, but one well worth reading. If you do not feel as reading a good and long mystery, try your hand at the shorter ones. But, don't use it as a way to bring the teaser and it's submitter down.

It takes a lot of work to round up a mystery like this one, keep them coming.

I enjoy solving mystery problems on several different web sites all of which are longer than these.
you folks need to sit back and relax and enjoy the set up for the mystery.
Irishthistle you just go on doing it the way you are, your fine.
don't let impatient people dictate how you do your writing

Did I just miss it, or did Tessa never name the person she was accusing of murder? Is it enough that she makes it clear it was an ex-boyfriend of the victim? I'm not sure that I buy the notion that Tessa was too unaware of the weather to realize that her story wouldn't fly.

I'm also a bit surprised that the story never even MENTIONS the red-bearded stranger who had been seen hanging about in the village for the previous fortnight... or the gruesome desecration of the family mauseleum six months' earlier... or the terrified, hopelessly garbled story told by the mentally handicapped teenaged son of the church sexton after he spent a night accidentally locked in the cavernous cellars of the old manor house.

I agree with Timilee. You should be an author. When I was reading it I felt just like Detective Callahan. I felt like I always do on those sorts of nights. Even though it's sunny and early morning where I am. Very well written. I loved it.

At first (before I got to the dead person part) I thought the scream was his tea, because when tea is boiled it like has this huge whistle scream, and I always think it is a scream when there is water boiling, but anyway, good teaser...

For the complainers of length: the entire story takes 3 minutes to read even when reading rather slowly in order not to miss clues. Another 30 seconds to ponder the answer and again 30 seconds to post a smiley... 4 minutes tops. Who doesn't have 4 minutes to spend on a VERY high quality, entertaining teaser?

It's better than wasting 90 seconds on a poorly designed or outright stupid teaser!

Galore, I think you might want to provide verification before you start accusing a very well respected member of taking someone else's work. There is no way you or anyone else will convince me that this teaser was copied. You're new to the site and should get your facts straight before you make accusations.